Sway Bars!!! ZOMG

leesrt · May 7, 2009

I would suggest anyone getting these on stock suspension to install the rear and drive it like that for a while. Adding the front bar to the stock suspension will increase your understeer. It may stay flatter but when pushed to the limit the front end will break loose sooner.

Look at other FWD cars that have aftermarket swaybars available and it's always the rear.
Mopar made these to go along with the coilovers, even SRT stated this.

The feeling of the front end having less roll will feel good until you take it to the limit.

Tedman · May 7, 2009

leesrt said:
I would suggest anyone getting these on stock suspension to install the rear and drive it like that for a while. Adding the front bar to the stock suspension will increase your understeer. It may stay flatter but when pushed to the limit the front end will break loose sooner.

Look at other FWD cars that have aftermarket swaybars available and it's always the rear.
Mopar made these to go along with the coilovers, even SRT stated this.

The feeling of the front end having less roll will feel good until you take it to the limit.

I normally don't do this and please forgive me...but you are wrong Sir! I don't know why you made such a comment. Do you even have these on your car?
There's a reason its sold as a SET. I may be wrong here... but I think the instructions even included the front installation process. :stickpoke:

I installed a set between 2 consecutive AutoX weekends with the exact same course and came out 3 seconds faster after the full sway install.

My experience was that the harder I entered turns without sways my front end would push hard because the inside wheel is lifting some weight off. Which means I had to brake earlier and accelerate later at the exit during turns.
The sways make both wheels stay planted thus providing more traction to both wheels for braking and accelerating.

Now, with the sways on the factory suspension my car can brake later, turn sharper at higher speeds, and accelerate at the apex out of the turn.

I have taken it to the limit and achieved a great increase. Have you seen the video I posted from an in car cam? I included it for your viewing pleasure.

As for the SRT engineers suggestion, that's their job to promote group products. It works just fine for me.
Besides, the stock suspension is a custom tuned suspension made on contract for the SRT group by ZF Sachs. If you don't know who they are look 'em up. They know what their doing.

I'm not trying to bust your balls. I am simply stating my experience which is not at all what you are stating which leads me to 2 conclusions. Either you are full of malarky, or you're not a DRIVER!!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBhHdVD7dW0

Kevin_ACR · May 7, 2009

Tedman said:
I normally don't do this and please forgive me...but you are wrong Sir! I don't know why you made such a comment. Do you even have these on your car?
There's a reason its sold as a SET. I may be wrong here... but I think the instructions even included the front installation process. :stickpoke:

I installed a set between 2 consecutive AutoX weekends with the exact same course and came out 3 seconds faster after the full sway install.

My experience was that the harder I entered turns without sways my front end would push hard because the inside wheel is lifting some weight off. Which means I had to brake earlier and accelerate later at the exit during turns.
The sways make both wheels stay planted thus providing more traction to both wheels for braking and accelerating.

Now, with the sways on the factory suspension my car can brake later, turn sharper at higher speeds, and accelerate at the apex out of the turn.

I have taken it to the limit and achieved a great increase. Have you seen the video I posted from an in car cam? I included it for your viewing pleasure.

As for the SRT engineers suggestion, that's their job to promote group products. It works just fine for me.
Besides, the stock suspension is a custom tuned suspension made on contract for the SRT group by ZF Sachs. If you don't know who they are look 'em up. They know what their doing.

I'm not trying to bust your balls. I am simply stating my experience which is not at all what you are stating which leads me to 2 conclusions. Either you are full of malarky, or you're not a DRIVER!!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBhHdVD7dW0

Awesome man! I am glad to see someone who has pushed this car stock then sways. Great video btw.

ericksrt4 · May 7, 2009

also to add. the mopar front sway bar is only 1 or 2 mm larger then stock if i recall, where the rear is 6 mm larger. so really the front isnt a whole lot bigger to where you would see a huge increase in understeer.

MoparSrt-4 · May 7, 2009

I think you guys are both right because....
Installing the set sounds like a good idea and smart thinking to keep them together as they are sold together,
but in then end, the new front bar is pretty much the same as the stock, so you shouldn't see much difference and even with the new front sway bar, the front end shouldn't become much stiffer.

I looked a long time and made an effort to find the specs for the stock sway bars and the track sway bars, and found the info from an engineers' chat and now they have been added to the specs thread:

Front swaybar, stock: 24mm
Front swaybar, track kit: 26mm

Rear swaybar: stock 18mm
Rear swaybar, track kit: 24mm

http://www.caliberforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=108755&postcount=1

For me personally, I would install both because the new front bar really wouldn't change much since it is only 2mm different and it would keep me from having a new sway bar sitting on a shelf.

leesrt · May 8, 2009

Tedman said:
I normally don't do this and please forgive me...but you are wrong Sir! I don't know why you made such a comment. Do you even have these on your car?
There's a reason its sold as a SET. I may be wrong here... but I think the instructions even included the front installation process. :stickpoke:

I installed a set between 2 consecutive AutoX weekends with the exact same course and came out 3 seconds faster after the full sway install.

My experience was that the harder I entered turns without sways my front end would push hard because the inside wheel is lifting some weight off. Which means I had to brake earlier and accelerate later at the exit during turns.
The sways make both wheels stay planted thus providing more traction to both wheels for braking and accelerating.

Now, with the sways on the factory suspension my car can brake later, turn sharper at higher speeds, and accelerate at the apex out of the turn.

I have taken it to the limit and achieved a great increase. Have you seen the video I posted from an in car cam? I included it for your viewing pleasure.

As for the SRT engineers suggestion, that's their job to promote group products. It works just fine for me.
Besides, the stock suspension is a custom tuned suspension made on contract for the SRT group by ZF Sachs. If you don't know who they are look 'em up. They know what their doing.

I'm not trying to bust your balls. I am simply stating my experience which is not at all what you are stating which leads me to 2 conclusions. Either you are full of malarky, or you're not a DRIVER!!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBhHdVD7dW0

Before you insult me please don't get over cocky because you took your car to an autoX.
Your front tire was lifting before because your front and rear sway bar was stock and was allowing the whole car to roll. If you had tried it with just the rear bar changed you would have felt the difference.
When you increase the rear bar you force the weight shift over the front end. This puts more weight on the outside tire, thus creating more grip and better turn in.

The stiffer your front bar is the more the front end acts like a solid axle. This makes the inside tire lift rather than stay planted for traction. This is probably why SRT stated the sway bars would work better with the coil-overs.

They didn't say this to sell products because the amount of people who can afford sway bars far out weigh those who can afford coil-overs. Why make a statement that will limit your sales to the number that can afford coil-overs?

I'm glad your feeling a difference but you didn't try it both ways so you have no idea if there's a difference. The other factor is in autox you don't really get to open the car up to higher speed turns. In your situation it may be better to just keep it flat like a go-cart. In an actual road course or full track you might feel a little different. That flat feeling you're experiencing now will change at higher speeds and cause the inside tire to lift rather than stay planted. This puts all the weight on one tire and in turn you loose traction.

What I stated is based on well established fact ans is common knowledge with suspensions. If you need to google it and read up. Don't get all pissy because you feel you have to defend your purchase.

My suggestion is for those who are getting them to try it and see the difference.

08srtBLACKOUT · May 8, 2009

^^^^very smart guy..

any i never mess wit the popo.......

UberMonk · May 8, 2009

08srtBLACKOUT said:
^^^^very smart guy..

any i never mess wit the popo.......

Ya something tells me I wouldn't want to be chased by Leesrt LOL.... he'd be one of those cops I'd like to stay friends with :jester::jester:

leesrt · May 8, 2009

UberMonk said:
Ya something tells me I wouldn't want to be chased by Leesrt LOL.... he'd be one of those cops I'd like to stay friends with :jester::jester:

My one rule. If I chase you and You damage my car......your getting tased. Lol

Tedman · May 8, 2009

leesrt said:
My one rule. If I chase you and You damage my car......your getting tased. Lol

LOL. I guess you only wish you had that kind of power. Nowdays you'd find yourself involved in a civil suit and out of a job. But I know you're just kidding. :beerchug:

Anyhow, to get back on topic...(sigh)

At the end of your lengthy response (which I appreciated and respect) you stated you are only suggesting a rear only install to people who haven't installed yet.
Have you tried this method on this car? No?
If not, maybe you should pipe down a little. I am sensing your agitation with this conversation and it seems like from this post and others I have read of yours, that you are always right.

BTW, that wasn't my first AutoX. I've been doing it for 4 years now, about 6X per season, and 2 seasons in this car, with trophies. I'm not getting pissy about it all or defending my purchase. I'm laughing at the whole thing because I have the solid proof under my belt. My purchase sold itself.

I have experienced both sides of what you're talking about. I did drive it with just the rear and then installed the front 2 days later. And it definetly felt better with the front installed.
I understand your point about the difference in cornering speeds but the autocross I go to reaches speeds of 60-70mph and turns maybe up to 40mph. Obviously, a lot lower speeds than road course, but better than most AutoX. But my front end is staying more planted than it did with the stock bars.

One things affects another with cars. I believe installing only the rear would put this car out of balance like it feels stock. The sway install made everything come together in the car as a whole.
And its not just the sways. Its a combination of it all. The strut brace, sways, MMs, and traction bars together have achived amazing results IMO.

This isn't my first performance car, so its no shock factor. Remember, I run with a Porsche club on and off road and my times are competitive with theirs, sometimes faster.

And just a side note because it was mentioned in a different reply, the front mm thickness may be only a minimal difference beyond stock, but there is a substantial weight difference. That can play a major factor in a bar's rigidity.

Whatever the case may be Lee, the sway set is a much tighter, better performing part for my car and my driving style. My 3 second increase on lap times proves that beyond the shadow of a doubt. (lingo you should understand)

Maybe when you actually get some on your car you'll understand. We can resume this conversation later on when you have some real experience with the specific conversation being discussed in this thread.

Until then, we'll have to agree to disagree. And I know me telling you that you are wrong is probably hard to swallow because that's how most LEOs are. You are used to being in control. And I fully understand that aspect.

GreaseMonkey · May 8, 2009

leesrt said:
Before you insult me please don't get over cocky because you took your car to an autoX.
Your front tire was lifting before because your front and rear sway bar was stock and was allowing the whole car to roll. If you had tried it with just the rear bar changed you would have felt the difference.
When you increase the rear bar you force the weight shift over the front end. This puts more weight on the outside tire, thus creating more grip and better turn in.

The stiffer your front bar is the more the front end acts like a solid axle. This makes the inside tire lift rather than stay planted for traction. This is probably why SRT stated the sway bars would work better with the coil-overs.

They didn't say this to sell products because the amount of people who can afford sway bars far out weigh those who can afford coil-overs. Why make a statement that will limit your sales to the number that can afford coil-overs?

I'm glad your feeling a difference but you didn't try it both ways so you have no idea if there's a difference. The other factor is in autox you don't really get to open the car up to higher speed turns. In your situation it may be better to just keep it flat like a go-cart. In an actual road course or full track you might feel a little different. That flat feeling you're experiencing now will change at higher speeds and cause the inside tire to lift rather than stay planted. This puts all the weight on one tire and in turn you loose traction.

What I stated is based on well established fact ans is common knowledge with suspensions. If you need to google it and read up. Don't get all pissy because you feel you have to defend your purchase.

My suggestion is for those who are getting them to try it and see the difference.

The stiffer your suspension is the more it will act like solid axle.

If you have very weak sway bars, more weight will be shifted to say the left tire while taking a sharp right corner, taking more weight off the inside tire and producing wheel spin.

A stiffer sway bar should prevent less weight transfer to the left tire, keeping more weight on the inside tire and preventing wheel spin.

Not too sure how a stiff sway bar is going to allow more weight transfer like you're saying here.

hwc2243 · May 8, 2009

GreaseMonkey said:
The stiffer your suspension is the more it will act like solid axle.

If you have very weak sway bars, more weight will be shifted to say the left tire while taking a sharp right corner, taking more weight off the inside tire and producing wheel spin.

A stiffer sway bar should prevent less weight transfer to the left tire, keeping more weight on the inside tire and preventing wheel spin.

Not too sure how a stiff sway bar is going to allow more weight transfer like you're saying here.

I didn't understand this either but in another thread I posted links to all of the information that explained it. However Lee's basic description of what happens is correct. A stiffer rear sway will actually transfer more weight to the front outside wheel and vice versa with the front.

To simplify the discussion a bit, a stiffer sway bar acts like a stronger spring. Now if you load the rear it transfers force to the outside front, however if you don't have stiffer springs up front, it will in affect transfer weight to the front which will affect your balance not too mention the slip angles on your tires thus causing more over/under steer.

As for the talk about small changes in diameter, keep in mind that the force applied by sway bars is a 4th order equation in relation to the diameter. To keep it simple say the bar were 2mm you can approximate the force as 2 to the 4th power or 16. Now increase that diamter to 3mm and the force is 81. Using the 24 and 26 mms were talking about 331,776 vs 456,976 or said another way increasing the sway 2mm increases the affect by almost 35% thats a pretty big difference.

So while I understand the physics of what is going, I can't say what the actual affect of these swaybars would be. I would love to have the opportunity to compare a stock car, one with just sway bars, and one with swaybars and the coilovers. Anyone wanna volunteer to lend me a few cars for the next autox?

leesrt · May 8, 2009

GreaseMonkey said:
The stiffer your suspension is the more it will act like solid axle.

If you have very weak sway bars, more weight will be shifted to say the left tire while taking a sharp right corner, taking more weight off the inside tire and producing wheel spin.

A stiffer sway bar should prevent less weight transfer to the left tire, keeping more weight on the inside tire and preventing wheel spin.

Not too sure how a stiff sway bar is going to allow more weight transfer like you're saying here.

Your thinking right but you've got what happens wrong.

When the sway bar is weaker it allows the front wheels to articulate or travel independently. When your car is leaning in a left turn the weight is going to shift over the right tire but what changes is how the opposite tire reacts. With the weaker bar, the unloaded wheel (left) will articulate and maintain contact with the ground because it can travel independent of the loaded wheel (right). This keeps two contact patches on the ground.

Look at a Jeep Rubicon. It has a "sway bar disconnect" on the front suspension so that when you're in rough terrain the wheels can "articulate" over rocks and hills independently. If it didn't have this feature when one wheel went one way the other would follow it and lift off the ground because they were tied together.

Back to the Caliber.
With the stronger bar you take the two wheels closer to being tied together. This keeps the unloaded wheel from articulating or traveling independently. What happens now is as the car leans to the right (in a left turn) the right wheel gets loaded and angles toward the lean. Because the left wheel is tied to the right via the stronger bar it now lifts off the ground because it can't articulate. This overloads the traction on the loaded tire and causes it to slide out.

The car is going to lean as much as the suspension allows. This has nothing to do with the sway bars. The sway bars control how your wheels react to the weight shift. Now at slower speeds (like autoX) you never reach the speeds where the true dynamics of all this will show their colors. At those low speeds the car will feel like it's staying flatter because it is. It's acting like a go-cart, but like a go-cart, when you reach a certain speed and turn the inside wheels will lift and eventually the cart will flip over.

If you watch SCCA racing (touring) keep an eye on the FWD cars. When they take a hard turn the rear unloaded wheels will lift off the ground but the front stays down. Thats because they have a stiff rear bar in the back and a weaker one up front. The goal is to keep the both fronts down on the ground.

Here's another thread I found explaining it.
http://www.srtforums.com/forums/f59/fwd-suspension-set-up-front-soft-vs-stiff-438077/

and another article
http://autospeed.com/cms/title_Rear-Sway-Bars-Improving-FWD-Handling/A_2359/article.html

and another
http://www.stealthtdi.com/SwayBars.html

whoosh@Realtune · May 8, 2009

I'm removing my sways to clear up all the confusion

GreaseMonkey · May 8, 2009

leesrt said:
Your thinking right but you've got what happens wrong.

When the sway bar is weaker it allows the front wheels to articulate or travel independently. When your car is leaning in a left turn the weight is going to shift over the right tire but what changes is how the opposite tire reacts. With the weaker bar, the unloaded wheel (left) will articulate and maintain contact with the ground because it can travel independent of the loaded wheel (right). This keeps two contact patches on the ground.

Look at a Jeep Rubicon. It has a "sway bar disconnect" on the front suspension so that when you're in rough terrain the wheels can "articulate" over rocks and hills independently. If it didn't have this feature when one wheel went one way the other would follow it and lift off the ground because they were tied together.

Back to the Caliber.
With the stronger bar you take the two wheels closer to being tied together. This keeps the unloaded wheel from articulating or traveling independently. What happens now is as the car leans to the right (in a left turn) the right wheel gets loaded and angles toward the lean. Because the left wheel is tied to the right via the stronger bar it now lifts off the ground because it can't articulate. This overloads the traction on the loaded tire and causes it to slide out.

The car is going to lean as much as the suspension allows. This has nothing to do with the sway bars. The sway bars control how your wheels react to the weight shift. Now at slower speeds (like autoX) you never reach the speeds where the true dynamics of all this will show their colors. At those low speeds the car will feel like it's staying flatter because it is. It's acting like a go-cart, but like a go-cart, when you reach a certain speed and turn the inside wheels will lift and eventually the cart will flip over.

If you watch SCCA racing (touring) keep an eye on the FWD cars. When they take a hard turn the rear unloaded wheels will lift off the ground but the front stays down. Thats because they have a stiff rear bar in the back and a weaker one up front. The goal is to keep the both fronts down on the ground.

Here's another thread I found explaining it.
http://www.srtforums.com/forums/f59/fwd-suspension-set-up-front-soft-vs-stiff-438077/

and another article
http://autospeed.com/cms/title_Rear-Sway-Bars-Improving-FWD-Handling/A_2359/article.html

and another
http://www.stealthtdi.com/SwayBars.html

I guess so, but using off-roading as an analogy is probably not good. We're talking lateral G's, not pure suspension articulation.

What I was talking about in my previous post was just looking at one axle, not the balance of both front and rear combined.

leesrt · May 8, 2009

GreaseMonkey said:
I guess so, but using off-roading as an analogy is probably not good. We're talking lateral G's, not pure suspension articulation.

What I was talking about in my previous post was just looking at one axle, not the balance of both front and rear combined.

I figured it would make it more understandable. The other articles I posted might explain it better.

GreaseMonkey · May 8, 2009

leesrt said:
I figured it would make it more understandable. The other articles I posted might explain it better.

I understand how they work, I was just talking about one part of your post.

There needs to be a balanced set-up between the front and rear, or else you'll really mess with the understeer/oversteer characteristics.

Simply put on just one axle though, a stiffer swaybar should in theory keep the inner tire planted more.

I would say that these would definitely help even on a stock suspension. You're probably not getting the fully benefit out of them unless going with coilovers, but there has to be an improvement.

icemanthrilla · May 8, 2009

please read my "mopar sway bars" thread.

leesrt · May 9, 2009

Simply put on just one axle though, a stiffer swaybar should in theory keep the inner tire planted more.

Your correct to a point. The inner wheel will stay down until your speed in the turn rotates the outer load bearing wheel to the point where it lift the inner wheel. The stiffer the sway bar the sooner this happens. It's kind of like a threshold and the stiffer the bar the lower the threshold becomes.

If you don't drive it to that threshold it will feel flat and tight like a go-cart. Once you get to that treshold it will come out from under you fast. The problem is when it does your loosing steering control and power all at once.

Sway Bars!!! ZOMG

leesrt

Tedman

Kevin_ACR

ericksrt4

MoparSrt-4

leesrt

08srtBLACKOUT

UberMonk

leesrt

Tedman

GreaseMonkey

hwc2243

leesrt

whoosh@Realtune

GreaseMonkey

leesrt

GreaseMonkey

icemanthrilla

leesrt

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